Luke Wilkshire

BornOctober 2, 1981

Luke Wilkshire is an Australian football (soccer) player who plays for Dynamo Moscow in the Russian Premier League. He plays at right back. Wilkshire played his junior football with his home town club of Albion Park. He moved on to represent his region by joining the Wollongong Wolves youth setup and spending several seasons there. Wilkshire then travelled to Canberra to spend a year at the AIS football program. He then moved overseas and was part of Middlesbrough's youth system. He made several senior appearances for them in the Premier League. His solid performances at the 2006 FIFA World Cup earned him a trial and subsequent three-year deal with Dutch top flight club FC Twente. In the 2007–08 campaign, FC Twente and Wilkshire accomplished an even bigger achievement: for the first time in the club history, FC Twente qualified for the preliminary round of the Champions League. Wilkshire has represented Australia at youth level earlier in his career, playing in the 2001 FIFA U-20 World Cup in Argentina, and in the 2004 Athens Olympic Games. On 14 November 2009, Wilkshire scored his first goal for his country in a 2–1 win over Oman in an Asian Cup Qualifier, in Muscat. In the 2010 FIFA World Cup, Wilkshire started in all three group games for Australia.